The Vive Developer Edition Will Be Free to Select Applicants

Picking Up Steam

As an increasing number of people warm up to the idea of bringing a virtual reality system into their homes, HTC and Valve are doing everything they can to ensure the Vive is that system.

First they dropped a bomb at the beginning of March, announcing not only SteamVR’s entrance into the consumer VR race, but a 2015 release. When they gave a taste to select GDC attendees, the Vive established itself as a winner in the race. I had the opportunity to check it out here in LA and can attest to its radness.

Free Vives

As we near the end of the month, Valve is keeping up the full court press. They just announced that the Vive Developer Edition will be free to select applicants. Contrary to Oculus’ approach to sell dev kits to anyone who wants one at $350 each, those who want an early crack at the Vive will have to earn it. Developers will have o apply online and it’s unknown how many they will issue. It sounds like the plan is to get a sign-up site up and running next week. Valve spokesperson Doug Lombardi provided this report to Ars Technica: “more info and ‘sign up’ forms will be available to all interested developers, big or small, via a new site coming soon.”

The Vive Developer Edition is a development kit that includes a headset, two single-handed controllers, and a system that tracks them all in the same absolute space.We’ll update this post as more information becomes available. You can learn more about the the Vive here.

About the Scout

Eric Chevalier

Eric Chevalier co-founded VRScout after a decade of content marketing in sports, entertainment and gaming. When he isn't sandy, Eric is scouring the streets of Los Angeles in pursuit of the best new storytellers from Hollywood to Silicon Beach.